


some long-lost something

by leetheshark



Category: IT (1990), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Bisexual Richie Tozier, Crying, Enthusiastic Consent, Gay Eddie Kaspbrak, Hand Jobs, Love Confessions, M/M, Oral Sex, Virgin Eddie Kaspbrak, unsolicited kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-23 18:46:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20894381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leetheshark/pseuds/leetheshark
Summary: That night at the Derry Inn, Richie and Eddie distract each other.





	some long-lost something

**Author's Note:**

> this is based on the 1990 miniseries, with a scene and some dialogue borrowed from it and some influence from the book.

Richie was still dying to get the hell out of dodge, but he was coming closer and closer to realizing that wasn’t going to happen.

Still, the lobby of the Derry Inn wasn’t the worst place to be. It was better than the library, anyway (and if it was true that the fucked-up magic of Derry made people forget things, maybe when Richie left, he could finally get some peace). He’d made his home for now on one end of the couch, next to Beverly, with Eddie on her other side. Even though the couch wasn’t big enough for three people, the closeness helped, just a little.

“For whatever reason,” Mike said, pacing back and forth across the carpet, hands in his pockets, “there’s something very special about us being together.” Bill sat on the floor, staring into the fireplace. Ben hovered aimlessly around the room. “We found each other that summer, and our togetherness made us strong. Otherwise, It would have picked us off one by one. I mean, think about it: is it an accident that none of us have kids? Including Stan.”

As Mike walked in front of the couch, Eddie took a sip of his tea. Richie kept his own teacup, which he’d spiked with a small amount of rum he’d found at the Inn’s bar, clutched close to his chest.

“Although—when we came together as young people, we were all, well, we were all losers. Now look at you.” Bill looked up from the fireplace to meet Mike’s pointed, proud gaze. “Six of you left Derry and became unusually successful. Big time breadwinners.”

“Leaving you holding the bag,” Bill chimed in. Eddie set his teacup back on its dish, which rested precariously on the leather arm of the couch, with a small _clink._ Richie’s eyes flickered over to him unconsciously.

“Yeah,” Ben added. “You kept the lighthouse for the rest of us. I feel like a real jerk about that.”

Beverly sighed, “Me too.”

Richie did, too. Really, he felt like a jerk most of the time. But he sure didn’t feel any better now.

“It’s nobody’s fault,” Mike went on. “Our parents decided who stayed and who went. And when I grew up, I stayed because I wanted to.”

Eddie spoke up, then. “I think you stayed because you had to,” he said, standing up from the couch. “I don’t know what’s gonna happen when the sun comes up, but I do know that I appreciate what you’ve done for everyone.” He took Mike’s hand and smiled.

It was hokey, Richie thought, and pretty damn useless, even though he knew that wasn’t fair. It also wasn’t fair to think that Mike was off his rocker and that he was going to get all of them killed, but Richie thought that anyway, too.

(Mike was right. Mike was right, and that was what scared Richie the most.)

Eddie took his seat on the couch again, and Beverly cozied back up under his arm. The six of them kept talking (minus Richie, who’d by now lost most of his enthusiasm and, he thought, a good portion of his sanity), and after a while, Beverly got up to sit with Ben on the other couch, leaving the space between Richie and Eddie empty.

Richie used the extra space to stretch his shoulders, and he watched from the corner of his eye as Eddie straightened his back and stretched out his neck. He thought about kicking his feet up into the empty space, but before he could, Eddie climbed across it. “Do you mind?” Eddie asked, as he moved to lay his head on Richie’s shoulder.

Richie shrugged. He set his teacup on the table behind the couch, next to one of the boxes they’d brought over from the library. “Be my guest, Spaghetti Man.” He slung his arm around Eddie’s shoulders as Eddie settled against him, shaking Eddie a little for good measure.

“Hey!” Eddie complained.

“You want to cuddle up with me, you gotta deal with it. Sorry, I don’t make the rules.”

“Yeah, sure.” He brought his knees up and set them on Richie’s thigh, then pulled the checkered blanket half on top of them again.

For the next while, Richie alternated between keeping his arm around Eddie’s shoulders and absentmindedly playing with Eddie’s hair. It was nice, because there was no way in hell Eddie would have let Richie do this thirty years ago. The way he’d let Richie play around with him in the library, and the way he cuddled up against Richie now, gave Richie the feeling that Eddie was desperate for companionship, some long-lost happiness, some long-lost _something._ And Richie got it, because he was, too.  


* * *

  
“Shut up, Richie!” Eddie whispered. “I want to hear Bill’s story.”

They’d stopped talking about It and started talking about anything else. Richie was glad. He sure as hell didn’t want to talk about It, and it was clear that Eddie didn’t either. Still plastered to Richie’s side, Eddie mostly listened quietly, until Richie’s interruptions got to be too much.

Richie was still pretty tired, so he mumbled one of his trusty retorts from the old days, from when he’d temporarily exhausted his creative capacities or just felt like getting on Eddie’s nerves: “Yeah? Make me.”

When Richie said that as a kid, Eddie’s little face screwed up into a look that said he might hit Richie if he had a violent bone in his body—

_(for anyone other than Pennywise, maybe)_

—and he sometimes stalked away fuming, making Richie feel half like he’d won and half like he’d really lost. But now, Eddie didn’t do that.

He closed the few inches between them and kissed Richie, instead.

It was barely a peck, but still enough to send Richie screeching off his axis. As Eddie’s lips came away from his, Richie scrambled madly for words and found none.

Eddie was blushing when he pulled away, and there was mischief in his eyes. “So? Did it work?”

Richie mimed locking his mouth with a key and throwing it away. The others laughed, and Richie’s promise of silence lasted a whole five minutes. His heart was beating fast and _God_ he hoped Eddie didn’t notice, curled up as tight against Richie as he was. And even though Eddie kissing him was small change compared to everything else that was going on—everything clowny and generally fucked—it was good. Yeah—it was really good.  


* * *

  
It was later when Richie decided to go up to his room, and this time he actually followed through. Eddie was still resting under his arm, so Richie ruffled his hair and pushed it in front of his eyes until Eddie batted his hand away. “Alright kiddos, it’s been fun, but a guy’s gotta get some sleep. What do you say, Eddie Spaghetti? Hit the sack?”

“Yeah,” Eddie agreed, yawning into his hand. “I’m pretty tired, actually. Goodnight, you guys. I really love all of you.” The others said their goodnights back, and Eddie put his glasses back on, grabbed his suit jacket, and followed Richie.

Richie felt Eddie’s hand brush his as they turned up the stairs. And even though he really had intended on going to bed, he got the sudden urge to keep Eddie with him—

_(keep Eddie safe)_

—so as he opened the door to his room, he reached out with nervous fingers and grazed Eddie’s elbow through his shirt. “You want to come in?”

Eddie looked up into Richie’s eyes, as if searching for a reason, and Richie had none to give him. All he had was a _knowing,_ that when he looked into Eddie’s eyes he felt a little bit better and when Eddie had kissed him it was like everything had shifted, like being close to Eddie was something wholly necessary.

“Yeah,” Eddie said. He licked his lips absentmindedly. “Okay.”

Richie turned the lights on and shucked off his jacket, while Eddie draped his own jacket on top of the dresser. Richie wished he could offer Eddie a drink or something. He felt aimless and a little stupid, asking Eddie up here on a momentary whim. It wasn’t like Richie didn’t know what adults got up to when they invited each other up to hotel rooms, but this was Eddie. And maybe, sure, but maybe not. Richie leaned against the dresser and sighed, “I missed you, kid.”

Eddie’s eyes brightened. “You did?”

“Yeah,” Richie said. “I did.” They both knew that neither of them remembered, or could have missed each other at all. But Richie still felt it acutely, like in the hours they’d been reunited he felt thirty years of missing Eddie all at once.

“I missed you too,” Eddie confessed, and Richie heard in Eddie’s voice that he meant just the same.

Richie wanted to reach out and touch Eddie, but the wanting threatened to hurt, so he kept his chucks going. _What the hell, right?_ “Hey, I got an idea,” he said, and he took Eddie’s clammy hands. “Dance with me, Eds.”

Eddie used to hate that nickname, but now it had him giggling against Richie’s shoulder as Richie pulled him into a lazy waltz, more swaying back and forth than anything else. Richie wrapped his arms around Eddie’s waist and thought about how much Eddie had grown since they were kids, and how small he still seemed.

“What,” Eddie smiled, “are you gonna sing to me, too?”

“You know me too well, Eddie my love.”

The surprise showed on Eddie’s face. “Oh, no—"

_“Eddie, my love...”_

It was sometime in 1956 that Richie first heard the song _Eddie My Love_ on the radio, and he decided instantly to learn all the words so that he could pester Eddie with it. Eddie hated it, which made Richie like it more, and Richie sang it constantly for a few months before Bill and Stan got tired of it.

Richie found the words again with ease. “I love you so…”

“Richie!” Eddie shrieked, burying his face again in Richie’s shoulder with laughter.

There was something better, now, about pushing Eddie’s buttons. Better because Eddie didn’t hide that he liked it. Better because Richie was drawing out a part of Eddie that had likely been buried since the two of them moved away from Derry.

“How I’ve waited for you, you’ll never know...”

“Richie, come on!”

“Please Eddie, don’t make me wait too long—”

For the second time, Eddie shut Richie up with a kiss.

He had to stand on his toes to do it, and he moaned softly as his mouth crashed against Richie’s. The touch of Eddie’s lips, just as it had before, had Richie’s heart racing.

Kissing Eddie felt like unearthing some secret from 1958, and Richie wondered—had he and Eddie kissed that summer? Richie was sure he had kissed Eddie’s forehead, or maybe his cheek, just to bother him. He vaguely remembered the feeling of Eddie’s baby-soft cheeks on his lips and the then-inexplicable high of being so close to Eddie. Had Richie _liked_ Eddie, then?

Yes, definitely Richie would remember if he had kissed Eddie’s lips, because he wouldn’t realize for a few more years that he liked boys at all, and he evidently wouldn’t realize for another thirty that he had wanted Eddie all this time.

Having Eddie was better than Richie would have imagined if he could have imagined it at all: the gentle and unsophisticated press of Eddie’s moisturizer-soft lips, the smell of his cologne and the generic soap scent of his shampoo, the foreign but somehow familiar shape of his body under Richie’s hands.

And sure, Richie was getting a little hot and bothered, but he would have been fine just going to bed. He would have been fine holding Eddie against him and getting some much-needed sleep, if he could even sleep after everything that had happened tonight. But when Eddie pulled away from Richie’s lips, and Richie looked into Eddie’s sparkling eyes through his round, rimless glasses, a realization seemed to hit both him and Eddie at the same time.

“Are we gonna have sex, Rich?” Eddie asked like it was a foregone conclusion—one he wasn’t confident enough to recognize, but one that was there nonetheless—and maybe it was.

Richie moved his hand to Eddie’s jaw, feeling it shift with Eddie’s breathing under the flushed-hot skin. “Do you want to have sex?”

Eddie looked up at Richie with sweet, wondering eyes. “Yeah.”

“Then yeah,” Richie said. He sounded soft, gentle, in a way that surprised even himself. “We can do whatever you want.”

Eddie nodded, a shy smile on his face. He dropped his head against Richie’s shoulder and hesitated for a moment before pressing soft kisses into Richie’s neck. The delicate touch of Eddie’s lips had Richie drawing in a shuddering breath. Richie got the feeling that Eddie was inexperienced, and that wasn’t something they had in common. Richie had been married five times. Richie got around. But this was different.

Eddie was different. Of course he was—he was _Eddie._

Eddie Spaghetti. Spaghetti Man. Eds. _Eddie my love._

“Eddie...” Richie ran his fingers through the feathery mess of Eddie’s hair.

“Mmm?” Eddie’s lips paused, and his breath cooled the damp skin where he had kissed.

“Let’s go to bed, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Eddie said, sounding dreamy. He let Richie take gentle hold of his suspenders and pull him to the bed, grinning all the while.

Richie touched down on the bed and said, “I gotta ask you something, Eds. You didn’t go and get really hammered while I wasn’t looking, did you?”

“No, I’m not drunk or anything.” Eddie’s eyes were wide and his hair was mussed. He climbed onto the bed after Richie. “I haven’t felt this clear-headed in a while, even.”

Richie got it, and he felt the same way. “Yeah,” he said. “Me neither.” He settled into the bed and took off his belt, throwing it aside. “Come here.”

Eddie climbed on top of Richie, and Richie maneuvered him so that half of his weight was on the bed, their legs interlocked. He plucked Eddie’s glasses from his face and set them down on the nightstand.

“Thank you,” Eddie sighed, and Richie responded with a kiss. Eddie held Richie’s face with delicate fingers, and when Richie offered his tongue, Eddie accepted it readily. Eddie’s hips moved lazily against Richie’s thigh, and Richie could feel his arousal, unmistakable.

Between kisses, Richie asked, “This good?”

“Mmm,” Eddie hummed, eyes closed.

Richie broke gently from Eddie’s lips to trail kisses along his jaw. Eddie groaned, baring his neck, and Richie dove into it, laving openmouthed attention over the tender skin. Eddie clung viselike to Richie’s shirt. 

After a moment, Eddie broke the silence and asked, “You ever been with a man, Rich?”

“Yeah, baby,” Richie said, in between kisses and nibbles to Eddie’s neck. Richie wasn’t sure when the pet names, the _Eddie Spaghetti_ and _Eds,_ turned to _baby,_ but it felt right.

“You ever had a boyfriend?” Eddie asked. “A committed one?”

“Nope.”

Eddie seemed satisfied with that answer. He fell silent, all heavy breathing and soft moans, sweet and pliable in Richie’s arms.

“What about you?” Richie wondered in turn. “You ever been with a man?”

_“Oh…”_ Eddie sighed. When Richie pulled away from Eddie’s neck and looked into his eyes, the embarrassment was clear on his face. “I’ve never been with anyone.”

Richie’s brow furrowed. He ran his hand through Eddie’s hair and asked, “What? What are you saying, you’re a virgin?”

Eddie nodded. “Mhm.”

“What about the woman you’re seeing?”

“I lied,” Eddie confessed. His voice had begun to shake, and his eyes watered. There was a forced, shy smile on his face. “I don’t even like women.”

“Aw, Eds,” Richie sighed. _Poor kid, getting so worked up about something like that._ He rubbed Eddie’s back soothingly, and Eddie’s tears began to flow freely. “That’s okay, baby. That’s okay. You didn’t have to lie about that.”

“I know. I know that you guys wouldn’t judge me or anything, I just didn’t know how to tell you that… that...”

“What is it?”

“It’s just that...” Eddie wiped tears from his cheeks with his sleeve. He spoke slowly, finding the words as he went. “I could never sleep with someone that I didn’t love. And I never really loved anyone, except you guys.”

Richie realized with a sudden, aching emptiness that it was true for him, too. That he had never loved any of his wives, or any of his flings. That the hole in him that opened up in Derry and flourished in his time away hadn’t come close to closing until now.

“Eddie...”

“It’s okay, Richie,” Eddie reassured, even though he was the one crying. “It’s okay. I love you.” Richie wondered if Eddie was going to huff his aspirator, like he always did when he got upset, but Eddie didn’t—it was almost like he’d forgotten he had to.

“I love you too, Eds. I really love you a lot.” It was the first time Richie had said those words and meant them. “I didn’t realize this would be your first time.”

“That’s okay. I’m happy it’s with you.”

Richie laughed, and a tear leaked from the corner of his eye. Eddie wiped it away with his thumb.

“I’m sorry,” Eddie said, sheepish. “Crying doesn’t really set the mood, huh?”

“Do you still want to?” Richie asked.

“Yeah. I do. Do you?”

“Yeah. Yeah.” Richie felt a desperate, nervous wanting that he hadn’t felt in a while, maybe ever. He reached for Eddie’s tie and started to loosen it. “Let’s take this off, okay?”

Eddie nodded. “Okay.”

Gently, Richie undid Eddie’s tie and set it on the nightstand. When he was done, he slipped Eddie’s suspenders off of his tense shoulders and, with an encouraging nod from Eddie, began to unbutton Eddie’s shirt.

Richie started at the collar, letting his fingers graze the shifting column of Eddie’s neck. As he popped the buttons with practiced fingers, all he revealed was Eddie’s white cotton undershirt, but it was breathtaking nevertheless. Because now, Richie could see the steady rise and fall of Eddie’s chest with his heavy breathing. He could see just how skinny Eddie still was—solid, but skinny—and with all the layers Eddie now wore, seeing him like this nearly felt like seeing him naked.

Slipping Eddie’s shirt from his shoulders, Richie pulled Eddie down for a kiss and ran his hands over Eddie’s exposed arms and the light muscle on them. When Richie plunged his hands below the bottom hem of Eddie’s undershirt, feeling the downy skin of his hips and the impossible heat he radiated, Eddie stopped him. “Wait a sec,” he said. “Let me do it.” He got up off of Richie and tugged his shirt over his head, and Richie got the hint.

Richie stripped off his own clothes unceremoniously, and when Eddie had tossed aside his slacks and both of them were down to their briefs, Richie reached out to Eddie and touched the soft underside of his forearm to get his attention. “Leave it,” Richie said. “Come here.” Eddie did.

Richie slid his arms around Eddie’s bare waist, took in the sight of Eddie’s body, and said, “Cute.”

Eddie laughed, shuddering through his whole body. “That’s the best thing you can think of to say to me right now?”

“You’re beautiful. Honest to God. You really could pull any guy you wanted, I mean it.”

Eddie collapsed against Richie in breathless giggles.

Richie grinned. “What’s so funny?”

“You really mean it?”

“’Course.” Their lips met in an unhurried kiss. “You want to lie down?”

Eddie lowered himself down onto his back and tugged Richie down with him. At Richie’s gentle urging Eddie spread his thighs apart, and Richie settled between them, kissing Eddie’s lips before once again before moving past his neck and, now, down to his shoulder. Before he went lower, Richie checked in, “You okay?”

“I’m okay,” Eddie assured.

And so Richie went on, trailing his mouth past Eddie’s collarbone and further. He poured attention over Eddie’s body—playing his tongue around peaked nipples and nipping at the supple flesh surrounding them, sucking marks into Eddie’s tender, responsive skin, kissing down his stomach and feeling its rise and fall up close. And when Richie’s panic came back and threatened to rear its ugly clown-shaped head and boil over, he focused on the feeling of Eddie’s skin under his lips and thought, _yeah, okay, maybe we’ll all die tomorrow, but at least I can give him this._

Eddie’s hands roamed through Richie’s hair and over his back, and when Richie’s mouth wandered below Eddie’s bellybutton, Eddie’s fingers dug hard into Richie’s skin. Richie’s lips hovered over the blonde hairs that led down past Eddie’s waistband, and his hands came up over Eddie’s thighs. When Richie looked up, Eddie’s expression was rapt, like when they were kids and went to monster movies together. Richie thought that maybe Eddie was holding his breath.

Richie hooked his fingers in Eddie’s waistband. “Can I?”

Eddie nodded, a little frantic. “Yeah,” he said.

Richie tugged Eddie’s briefs down over his erection, then over his thighs and off. When he climbed back in between Eddie’s thighs, Eddie parted them a little more to give him room.

“Tell me if you want me to stop,” Richie said.

Eddie nodded, and so Richie pressed a kiss against him, making Eddie gasp. Then, Richie took Eddie into his mouth. Eddie trembled. “Oh,” he hissed, _“fuck.”_

Richie slid off and quipped, “Such language! What would your mother say?”

“Beep beep, Richie.”

Richie went back to it, taking Eddie back into his mouth, taking it slow. It was too easy to think when he wasn’t talking, but Eddie was a good distraction, and Richie thought, _Don’t think about It. Think about Eddie. Think about Eddie._ Maybe someday he could do this for Eddie without having to worry about what would come next—

_(and maybe they’d both die tomorrow, or one of them would, and he’d never get the chance)_

—or maybe it didn’t matter yet, because that was later, and this was now. _Later_ had It, but _now_ had Eddie.

Eddie was panting hard. His curls bounced against the pillow as he thrashed, and his hand was clasped over his mouth. He was having trouble keeping his hips still, but that was just fine. Richie could handle it, so he let Eddie thrust up and fill his mouth and take what he needed without holding back.

“Richie,” Eddie whined. “Richie, I’m gonna come.”

Richie reached for Eddie’s hand and Eddie gave it over, letting Richie thread their fingers together and squeeze. It was Richie’s silent way of saying, _It’s okay baby, I got you._

Eddie spilled in Richie’s mouth, tensing all over. “Richie,” he panted. “Oh hell, Richie.”

Eddie’s hand fell from his mouth as Richie came off of him. Richie climbed up the bed to lie by Eddie’s side again, running his fingers through Eddie’s hair as Eddie caught his breath. After a moment, Eddie’s eyes slipped closed, and his hand found Richie’s cheek, holding him close.

“So what do you think?” Richie asked. “Worth your while?”

Eddie just laughed breathlessly, and when he found the energy, gave Richie a peck of a kiss. His hand fell to Richie’s chest, fingers combing through the hair there, and then moved to Richie’s leg. “Can I?” he asked. His fingers crept feather-light across Richie’s thigh and hovered dangerously near to where Richie’s erection strained at his briefs.

Richie nodded. His voice felt thick. “Only if you want to,” he said.

“I really do,” Eddie confessed as he fit his hand tentatively over Richie and rubbed him through the fabric. Richie inhaled. “Tell me…” Eddie licked his lips as he thought of what to say. “Tell me if it’s not good.”

“Whatever you want to do is good, baby,” Richie assured. “I mean it.”

Eddie’s fingers slipped below Richie’s waistband and wrapped, gentle and exploratory, around Richie’s cock. “That’s good, baby,” Richie said. “Yeah, just like that.” 

The touch of Eddie’s hand was just what Richie needed and more, his hips moving minutely up into Eddie’s strokes, and after a while Richie stilled Eddie’s hand and kicked his briefs off. When Eddie settled back against his side he took Richie’s lips in lazy kisses that melted, with Eddie’s effort, into Eddie resting his slack lips against Richie’s, breathing nearly as hard as Richie was.

“A little faster, baby,” Richie choked. “I’m almost there.”

Eddie licked his lips and quickened his pace. He ducked his head and pressed a kiss into Richie’s neck, soft and sweet and devoted—and with Eddie’s lips on his neck and Eddie’s fingers on his cock, Richie came.

Finally Richie’s heart slowed, pulsing thick like molasses in his chest. For a long minute, he couldn’t move, and he didn’t want to. When Eddie curled into him, cheek hot against Richie’s chest, Richie felt like he would have given Eddie anything.

“You’re a good kid, Spaghetti,” Richie sighed, wrapping his arms tight around Eddie’s waist. Eddie just hummed contentedly in response. “You mind if I don’t clean up just yet?”

“No,” Eddie said. “I don’t care.”

Richie felt the in and out of Eddie’s breathing, the small puffs of air, against his chest. He felt Eddie’s ribcage expand and contract, and his muscles shift to get comfortable, and all those other signs of life that said _I’m here._

And when some time had passed, and Richie started to feel sticky and uncomfortable, he patted Eddie’s hip and kissed his cheek before getting up and padding to the bathroom. He cleaned himself up with a damp washcloth, splashed water on his face, and then took out his contacts and put on the thick-framed glasses he still kept for emergencies.

When Richie came out of the bathroom, Eddie saw his face and beamed. He sat up when Richie joined him on the bed again. “I like you in your glasses.”

Richie plucked off his glasses and stuck them on Eddie, lopsided. “I like you in my glasses.”

Eddie laughed, and Richie hoped and hoped he’d get to hear it again when all this was over. It sounded like childhood and love and missing and finding all at once.

“How about yours?” Richie asked. “You really need them or what?”

“My vision’s almost perfect.” Eddie took Richie’s glasses off and toyed with them. “They’re mostly just for reading, but my ma likes me to wear them, ‘cause she says I’ll get headaches if I don’t.”

“Jesus Christ, Eddie.”

“Yeah,” Eddie said. “Yeah, I know.” He forced a self-conscious smile and rubbed a hand across his face. “I’m gonna go clean up, okay?” Eddie hesitated, then kissed Richie’s cheek, then headed off to the bathroom.

Once alone, Richie realized just how dead tired he was. He dragged himself across the room to turn off the lights, then set his glasses on the nightstand next to Eddie’s and slipped under the covers.

Eddie came back smelling like Richie’s mouthwash and climbed into Richie’s arms, tossing and turning until he was comfortable. Eventually he settled against Richie with his back to Richie’s front, letting Richie spoon him. Richie wrapped his arms around Eddie tight, and Eddie hugged them close.

“Comfortable?” Richie murmured into Eddie’s hair.

“Yeah,” Eddie said. After a moment, he added, “I should probably go back to my room before morning, though. In case someone comes to wake us up.”

“Eddie, pal, they all saw you kiss me and they all saw us go up together. They might have an inkling of what’s going on.”

“Oh,” Eddie hissed, _“shit,”_ with all the grace of someone who didn’t normally swear.

“Nah, they don’t care.” Richie nuzzled the back of Eddie’s head, breathing in the scent of his shampoo once again.

In the settling silence, it would have been easy to pretend they were anywhere but Derry. Still, Richie knew that he couldn’t have found Eddie anywhere else.

“We can go to the airport in the morning,” Richie spoke into Eddie’s hair and the darkness. “We can get out of here. You could even come to California with me. Hell, I’d go anywhere you wanted.”

Eddie sighed profoundly and found Richie’s hand, interlocking their fingers. “I want to,” he confessed. “More than anything. But I think… Oh hell, Richie, I don’t know. Can we talk about it in the morning?”

“Yeah, Eds. Of course.” Feeling shaky, Richie pressed a kiss into Eddie’s hair, then lowered his head into the pillow. Yeah—it could wait. Beverly Hills wasn’t going anywhere. _It_ wasn’t going anywhere.

And Eddie wasn’t going anywhere, at least not for the next few hours, if Richie had anything to say about it. As the dawn sunlight crept in between the curtains, he fell asleep listening to the sound of Eddie’s soft snoring and hoping against decent odds that Mike or Bill—or whoever was in charge now—would at least have the courtesy to let them sleep in.

**Author's Note:**

> workshopped with l & beta'd by bg
> 
> hit me up on [tumblr](http://geislieb.tumblr.com)


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